METHODOLOGY

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Learning is not about the transfer of knowledge from an expert to a novice but to allow individuals to construct knowledge for themselves.

We have to help children to learn how to gather information using the mass media, internet, … and how to arrange it. But the most important is to manage that children learn how to transform this information into knowledge.

Our role as teachers is to enable our pupils to see the world through their eyes, not ours. We can focus their attention, develop their skills and knowledge, help them appreciate uniqueness and diversity, and encourage them to make personal and reasoned responses to what they see and feel.

Teachers tailor their teaching strategies to student responses and encourage students to analyze, interpret and predict information. Therefore we have to motivate their significant learning: revisit ideas, ponder them, try them out, play with them and use them.

We should not forget that learning is a social activity: our learning is intimately associated with our connection with other human beings, our teacher, our peers, our family, as well as casual acquaintances. We should not forget either that learning is contextual, so we learn in relationship to what else we know, what we believe, our prejudices and our fears.

We will work individually, in pairs, in small or big groups, … depending on the activities to carry out and, in some cases, depending on each child’s viewpoint. We have to encourage the team spirit. Children have to learn to help each other, sometimes asking for help, sometimes being of help to somebody.

To put all this into practice space is very important. The classroom is a social setting. It has to be organized for children to have sense. It has to remember the experiences for not to lose the leitmotiv: sentences, posters, maps, newspaper articles, pictures, time lines, …

To conclude, we have to create a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere to help children to communicate and express themselves in English. Pupils should achieve a pragmatic vision of language, that is to say, not to learn the language but to live it, trough this area.